Intermezzo
by la Domkova
Summary: “I love you,” said Agnés boring her eyes into Haji’s, as a light wind shook her hair. “I love you, they are words so hard to say, and yet so natural to pronounce…” “I… I never told her..." A chevalier, a girl and a day in Paris.


**AN**: It's a long time since I haven't wrote anything, and even longer since the last time I've translated one of my stories in English: I hope that this one shot doesn't suffer from my lack of practice.

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"_Excusez-moi monsieur, _it's not allowed to perform here."  
Those words were like a countercharm that freed the people from the cello's enchantment, somebody let fall shyly a couple of coins inside the case before leaving. Haji raised his eyes on the person whom had interrupted his performance: the girl stared severely at him with cat-like eyes, as the wind shook her hair making them shine in the sun like yarns of gold and copper. They glared at each other in silence and then, unexpectedly, the girl sat near him.  
"My name is Agnès, and yours?"

**Intermezzo**

"I suppose that you're paying your trip throughout Europe with the passer-bys' gentle offerings, _monsieur _Haji," said Agnés peeping at the coins in the case. "You're not the first one, but I advise you to not do so here at Notre-Dame: there are so many tourists here that…"  
"That if were allowed, there would be too many people performing," he ended, putting the instrument in the case. "I should have imagined it."  
The girl stretched her legs and tilted her head a little. "Well, not everybody knows that, especially…" Her eyes widened, staring somewhere, and unexpectedly she grabbed Haji's arm and pulled him to her. "P-please, could you pretend to be my boyfriend for a little bit?" she whispered with a thin voice, almost hiding in him.  
"But…"  
"Please…" she insisted, getting up and forcing him to do likewise, and she dragged him away.  
Haji had just the time to take his cello, surprised more by the girl's behavior and her request than by his own reaction: even if he didn't show it, he was a bit embarrassed by the way Agnés squeezed his arm. Saya had never done that and he wondered how she would react if she had seen him with another woman, but he didn't dare to seek an answer.  
"I'm sorry, I… I should seem weird, but…" Agnés whispered at last, letting him go, "but I didn't want to be approached by… some one."  
He said nothing: in a way, that girl reminded him Saya, especially her way to hide her suffering. Haji didn't know what worried Agnés that much and surely her reasons were different from Saya's. Haji would have known what to do if Saya had been instead of Agnés.  
"To make myself forgiven, I'll show you around, _monsieur_ Haji," she suggested, smiling.  
He was about to reply that, really, it was not necessary (with all the time he had spent visiting Paris) but her bittersweet smile made him change his mind.

The afternoon passed almost without Haji realizing it and he felt guilt towards Saya: he knew that she was about to wake up from her long sleep, and despite fact that he hadn't yet found her, despite his need to be near her was unbearable, he wasn't able to find the courage to see her again after what had happened in Vietnam.  
"If you keep it inside, you won't be able to resolve your problems," Agnés whispered, poking his belly.  
"Wha-what are you talking about?!"  
She sighed, leaning on the bridge's baluster. "I've met you only few hours ago, nevertheless I feel like knowing you from long ago. There is something that you hide here," she kept on moving her forefinger from his abdomen to his chest. "I don't like forcing people, but I am here and I know how to listen to. I'm always there for the others."  
It wasn't because she poked him in that way, neither because of her words. It was because of _**t**_he tone of that last sentence that Haji placed his hand on Agnés's shoulder: he had always been there for Saya.  
"I've always been there for _her_, but…"  
"But sometime we don't know what to do and we are afraid that, if we go too forward, we will end with a broken heart. I've always said yes, even when I realized that _he_ was… using me," Agnés whispered the last two words almost weeping.  
Haji started: what if Saya had used him too? A needless question: he was her Chevalier, it was normal to obey to her wills, feed her with his blood, nevertheless… nevertheless once he had been a human being, with his needs and his feelings, things that his new nature had not been able to erase and rather, they seemed to feed on his instinct of Chevalier.  
"I love you," said Agnés boring her eyes into Haji's, as a light wind shook her hair. "_I love you_, they are words so hard to say, and yet so natural to pronounce… words that could make you touch the sky with a finger with joy, but also pierce your heart with thousand swords… sometime they're said too early and others too late."  
"I… I never told her," he admitted with a thin voice.  
"Afraid to be rejected and to suffer, eh? We're two, with the difference that I have decided to extirpate this feeling before its roots become too deep. I won't deny that it hurts, but it hurts me less than seeing my heart being broken for the umpteenth time. That's why that I've decided to put my heart in a glass jar filled with chloroform and place it on my taller shelf, out of anyone's reach."  
Haji was silent. "Even if I tell her, even if she forgives me what happened the last time I saw her, I…" _Haji, promises me that when everything will be over_…  
They leaned against the baluster, their heads down as the people around them laughed wrapped in their happiness. Agnés caught Haji's wrist.  
"I've done a _marquise au chocolat_ for tomorrow, but I can make another dessert an other dessert, and there is a Monop' nearby my house: let's drown our heartaches in chocolate and ice cream, and let's try forget for a moment those who make us suffer!"

They said nothing in the subway and Haji just carried the bags filled with chocolate boxes and ice cream. The only thing he said was to expose his doubts about Agnés inviting him to stay at her place despite the fact that they barely knew each other, but she had opened the door and almost kicked him inside her apartment.  
"Sorry for the mess, but I'm still doing with my thesis: if I've gone out today it's because I needed a huge break," she said nodding at the pile of books on the desk. "But make yourself comfortable and make yourself at home, in the meantime I'll take a shower."  
Haji turned toward her, feeling embarrassed for the second time: Agnés wasn't Saya, that was the question. Not knowing what to do and above all how to loosen his sudden tension, he took the cello and he started to play the melody Saya had taught him: slowly and with each attack of the arc, he had the impression that his mind emptied from the thoughts that had followed him during the whole day, leaving the place to the almost sensual pleasure that music gave him and to the distant memory Saya's smile - the smile he wanted so much to see on her face again. With the last note still ringing in the room, he reopened his eyes to see Agnés sitting on the floor in front of him: physically, she had nothing in common with Saya except for the smooth hair (one's dark and the other's strawberry blonde) that, still damps, clung on her shoulders and neck. She looked at him with her clear cat-like eyes, her elbows on the low table and her face cupped in her small and slender hands, her body wrapped in an old jeans dress perhaps a little bit too short.  
"I envy a little her, your loved one I mean: you can see from a mile how you love her. And, talking with respect, she must be quite dumb to not have realized that. Or perhaps she's afraid too? Afraid that, if she says yes, there would be suffering?" The arc fell on the wooden floor, Haji stared at her with wide open eyes. "You know, once I found myself in such a situation: it was junior school's last year and there was this guy who wanted to date me and that… I was not at all indifferent, but I was too afraid to accept. But what could I've done? That year I had been dumped twice and I was afraid to repeat the experience."  
Haji picked up the arc sighing. "I never considered that. Afraid to suffer again… maybe that is also one of the reasons behind our promise?" he whispered, mostly to himself.  
"Chocolate? The cherry and red peppers ones are not that bad," she whispered with a bitter smile, holding out a box.  
He hesitated before stretching his hand to take one, mostly for good manners, and he stared at the chocolate as if that was enough to make it disappear. The telephone rang, startling them: Agnés tightened her lips as she read the name on the display, trembling.  
"Wo-would you mind to answer, Haji?" she whispered with a broken voice. "You just have to push this button and say _allo_, you know?"  
He nodded, feeling somewhat uneasy. "A…"  
"_Agnés?_" The man's voice had barely whispered the name with a light stress at the end, and Haji found himself wishing for Saya to pronounce his name in that same way.  
"… allo?"  
"_Agnés, who's there with you? Don't…_"  
"Haji, come back to bed," she whispered, fairly loud to be heard by the man, as she closed the call. She kept her head down, squeezing the phone, and then she sniffed. "I'm sorry, but… but if I let him talk to me, I don't know if… if I would been able to say _no_ for the second time." She sobbed, hiding her face in her hands.  
He looked at her in silence, feeling powerless: if it was Saya who was crying, he wouldn't hesitate to take her in his arms and to soothe her. But it was Agnés crying in front of him, not Saya.  
"Usually, in this situation a knight in shining armor would hug me," she sobbed wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "And it won't hurt if there is something more than a hug: the illusion to be loved makes you feel so damn good and seeking consolation it's so sweet."  
Haji lowered his eyes. "I am sorry but… you're not _her_ and it wouldn't be fair toward her and toward you: I would use you for my own delusions and knowing this would make you feel even worse at the end.  
She looked at him with red, puffed eyes. "She… she's really a lucky girl. And surely you're thinking that I'm a slut," she whispered sniffing, then she sat at his side giving him her back and twisting her torso. "However there is another thing that makes me feel good, even if it would be just me using you: would you… mind to brush my air?"  
Haji simply took the brush she handed him with that bittersweet smile of hers, and he began to run the bristles through Agnés's still moist hair with a slow and delicate movement: he smiled to himself thinking about all the times Saya asked him to cut her hair, about how the first time the outcome had been simply pitiful, about the days that forewent her awakening searching for proper clothes and food and those that followed spent telling her how the world had changed during her long sleep.

… _Haji…_

He turned suddenly, staring at the dark sky and the city lights which rivaled with the stars.

… _Haji…_

He let the brush and put back the cello in its case, as Agnés looked shocked at him: Saya's voice rang in his mind, light, distant, and he knew that soon she would wake up and that he had to be there.  
"Haji, what are you doing?" asked Agnés, seeing him open the window, ready to jump.  
He hesitated and then turned toward her. "Even if I explain, I'm not sure that you would understand but… but Saya needs me and I have to be with her."  
Agnés embraced him from behind, rubbing her face against his jacket. "The door is on that way, Haji. And promise me that the next time that we will meet, you'll introduce me your loved one."


End file.
